104 – Scroll

Zael hadn’t exactly been drowning in options when it came to how he could retaliate, given that he had needed to impale himself on his opponent’s sword to protect Rafael. Even so, when his skull cracked against the human’s, he regretted his choice. Stars exploded across his vision, and despite having braced for impact, he created no opening for himself—he was at least as stunned as his opponent.

He had hoped that [Innate Toughness] would overcome the level difference, but apparently the enemy warrior had a similar skill at his disposal, or in an even worse case, Zael was fighting against someone not one elevation higher but two.

Both of them staggering backward, the human unsheathed his sword from Zael’s shoulder. The fire-like sting of metal sliding through flesh felt as invigorating as it did painful, thanks to how intensely blood was suddenly pounding through his veins. He used the surge of energy to respond properly this time: in one smooth motion, he scooped up his dropped axe and spun into an attack, slashing the enormous two-handed weapon downward. Sparks flew as the human barely reacted in time, diverting the skill-empowered blow with his sword.

Not two elevations higher, then. Just tough. A tenth-elevation warrior would have parried that blow with time to spare.

Momentum carried Zael’s weapon into the floor, and tile exploded as a small crater appeared beneath their feet. A random waiting room obviously wasn’t meant to contain a fight between warriors of eighth and ninth elevation. Dust filled the air and muddied their vision, but Zael was already spinning, pivoting and extending the motion into a full-circle rotation to build up speed. He aimed on instinct, using intuition for how the human was most likely to move.

He guessed correctly, but the human still caught the black metal of Zael’s axe on his blade. The sound that blew through the room deafened him and spawned a shockwave, blasting air all around and throwing up even more dust and debris. The human grunted and held firm, feet cracking tile as Zael bore down on him. The sword shook, and Zael’s arms did too as he strained with all his might. But he failed to win the contest of strength.

Not bad, he couldn’t help but acknowledge in the back of his mind. Few people could match him in that regard, even with a level advantage.

The swordsman heaved away Zael’s axe, then peeled backward, forcing them to both disengage for a second. They breathed hard, appraising each other. Then Zael rushed in, feinted an attack from the left, and succeeded with the misdirection. He used the opening to kick the human in the stomach, activating a skill to empower the blow. Lord Barrow blasted through the brick wall separating the headquarters from the street, and Zael jumped through after him without the slightest hesitation.

In most circumstances, a full elevation could make a fight nearly insurmountable. Yet this human hadn’t challenged just any eighth-elevation warrior, but the son of Mizar Keresi himself—Mizar Keresi, Primus of the First Blood, a demon Titled by the Primogenitor’s Blood as Savage of the Wastes. This human might have spent all day spoiling for a fight, but the fundamental difference between him and Zael was that there hadn’t been a moment in Zael’s life where he hadn’t been itching to spill blood.

Maybe if the worm had a Title, Zael would have been worried.

A fist to the stomach, manifesting as if from thin air, laid low his surging confidence. His breath left him in a gasp, defenses crumbling under the sheer power behind the strike.

What? How? Zael’s kick had landed true; the human should have been grounded for at least a moment. Instead, Barrow had met Zael’s pursuit with a punch to the gut.

Zael barely recovered in time, and the swordsman’s blade carved a red line down his forearm for the lapse in judgment—Zael was lucky that was all he suffered. Two steps became five became ten as he retreated from a furious onslaught of sword slashes, so fast that he almost couldn’t keep up. A weapon art. Each of those attacks had the power to cut straight through a limb if it landed. Zael grimly reminded himself that a full elevation was nothing to treat lightly, even if he had started the fight strong. Zael might be the more skilled fighter here, and be powerful for his level, but this wasn’t a duel to approach with anything but complete focus.

At the end of the flurry, Zael prepared to activate one of his own weapon arts—

—but then the fight ended with three spoken words.

“[Zero Point Stasis],” Rafael said.

Power exploded behind Zael as if an archmage had detonated their mana core. The three emerald gems affixed within the bracelet on his wrist shattered, offering no resistance whatsoever. The furious fist of one of the gods themselves scooped Zael in a crushing grip—then squeezed with all the heavens’ combined might.

He came to such a sudden stop it felt as if he’d teleported into a block of starmetal. Never in his life had he experienced such immediate and incontestable strength. The only memory that remotely compared was decades ago: one of his earliest training sessions, his father pinning him to the ground with a boot on the chest. A Titled’s strength against a child’s.

By instinct, Zael fought with everything he had. He activated [Shatter Bindings], his most effective spell-breaker skill, and strained so hard the blood vessels in his eyes must surely have burst. He might as well have dug his fingers into the earth and tried to haul the entire continent overhead. All the might he could muster slammed against the magic holding him in place and bounced off his target as if he’d thrown a ball of cotton against the towering walls of Ochreclast. The mana in the air didn’t fluctuate in the slightest. Not so much as a wobble.

The fight left him, something that almost never happened to Zael. He hung there, frozen in place and balanced awkwardly, caught in a pivot-and-twist with his axe half-raised—the intended start of his own weapon art, a planned retaliation to the swordsman’s frenzy. He was stunned, unable to form a complete thought, much less speak. Not that he could’ve if he wanted to.

What… what tier scroll had the Guildmaster of the humans just burned? A relic inscribed by the Sorceress herself? Zael knew he was only eighth elevation, and that even Titled on the weaker end could subdue him with little effort, but the sheer force of the spell suffocating him—it had to be magic much stronger than merely eleventh or twelfth elevation. He’d experienced spells like that before, and this didn’t compare.

Shoes clicked steadily and rhythmically against cobblestone as Rafael walked up to insert himself between the two prior combatants. After sweeping his gaze up and down Lord Barrow, expression utterly unperturbed and even the dust covering his clothing and skin somehow not marring the pristine image of control he projected, Rafael made a noise in the back of his throat that could have meant any number of things.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

He turned away from Barrow to face Zael. “My sincerest apologies, Lord Keresi. An area-of-effect scroll seemed most prudent given the circumstances. I didn’t want to take any risks, seeing how I was struggling to track what was happening.”

Zael, of course, said nothing. Because he couldn’t so much as move his eyeballs to meet Rafael’s gaze. All his frustration over the development couldn’t manifest into even a twitch of his lips. That his heart remained beating within his chest at all was a blessing.

“I’m afraid I need to send for the City Guard, so that Lord Adventurer Barrow can be contained with minimal danger to the citizenry,” Rafael continued. He looked around. “And city property,” he added wryly. “The good news, my lord, is that I will no longer need to see to his appointment, and you were next on my schedule. It seems I won’t have to make you wait.”

Was he…

Was he jesting?

At a time like this?